So if you should find yourself in Rome during starling season, enjoy it! Because the starlings, just like the ruins scattered underneath them, are all creating the means for you to experience Rome’s rich and distant past. Solitary birds like eagles and hawks often take advantage of thermals to extend their flight time as they search for food. Just imagine- what today is considered an unnecessary phenomena or nuisance was once a sign from the divine! Why do flocks of birds fly in a circle over the same place over and over again The behavior you speak of is due to an effect called thermals. In Ancient Rome these flocks of birds were observed from the Capitoline Hill by oracles, high above the Roman Forum, where they would watch the formations in order to interpret the wishes of the gods. Pelicans, geese, and other waterfowl form lines and Vs, presumably to take advantage of aerodynamic factors that save energy. These starlings have been around since Ancient Rome, when they were seen in a much different light. But only a relative handful really fly together, creating what University of Rhode Island biologist Frank Heppner, in the 1970s, proposed calling flight flocks: namely, highly organized lines or clusters. While it’s true that the starlings are unintentionally a nuisance to monuments, parked cars, and people passing underneath, there is something very special about these birds. They have managed to keep the starling situation under control by utilizing an artificial starling “distress sound” to move stationary flocks along who occasionally stop to roost. The city of Rome has since teamed up with environmental groups and Fauna Urbis to find a humane solution. These otherwise harmless feathered-friends unfortunately cause lots of damage to the city’s cars, streets, and monuments with all those droppings, and have even caused a few problems at Rome’s airports in recent years. You can hear them murmuring in unison, especially along the trees of Rome’s Tibur river, or observe their flight formations from the Capitoline Hill. Snow geese can travel in flocks of about 2,000 and they are usually seen flyin in a V formation or as a multitude of birds. Flying birds in different periods of the days are described. A flock of birds can remain for hours in the air utilizing the updrafting force of the air. Besides, birds change their positions in circles while flying. The rising air provides them a necessary force in order to fly in the air. These are starlings, a type of bird whose large flocks simultaneously entertain and wreak havoc on Rome’s population once a year. To save flight energy, birds fly together in circles. Visitors in Rome during the fall and early winter might notice the hypnotizing swirls of small black birds, flying in synchronized patterns in the sky, much like those massive schools of fish you might see in the ocean.
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